All 4 Uses of
tempered
in
David Copperfield
- You are so good, and so sweet-tempered.†
Chpt 19-21sweet-tempered = not easily angered or upset
- If his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion against anyone, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister.†
Chpt 58-60 *
- Bless my soul, when I see her getting up by candle-light on these dark mornings, busying herself in the day's arrangements, going out to market before the clerks come into the Inn, caring for no weather, devising the most capital little dinners out of the plainest materials, making puddings and pies, keeping everything in its right place, always so neat and ornamental herself, sitting up at night with me if it's ever so late, sweet-tempered and encouraging always, and all for me, I positively sometimes can't believe it, Copperfield!'†
Chpt 61-62
- 'You can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.'†
Chpt 31-33
Definitions:
-
(1)
(tempered as in: bad news tempered by kindness) made less extreme
-
(2)
(tempered as in: tempered steel) made stronger or more flexible by heat treatment -- often of steel or glass
-
(3)
(tempered as in: short-tempered) having a typical mood or temperament -- often in reference to how easily one is angered